Rough Gentlemen Petting
by jossujb
Summary: There wasn't a scene with Litefoot's petting instincts in The Beast of Kravenos, but I feel there should have.


"Hmm, I must fully admit, that despite all the hair and paws, Henry still looks hazily like Henry after all", said Professor Litefoot after petting Mr. Jago's stunned head for a while. The poor Impresario fellow had, for so far unknown reason, turned into an enormous fluffy beast, that had a face scrabbled by draught and clamps like hectare wide shovels. Ms. Romana tossed her head as she was sitting back in the closed horse carriage. Dragging unconscious Mr. Jago along had been testing indeed.

"If I were you I'd be careful, Professor, as if what I'm seeing is correct, Mr. Jago has poisonous spikes in his fur," she warned him, but the Professor cared little for good advice. He was pawing Mr. Jago's massive foot pads on his lap.

"I do love all kind of animals so", he said in a particularly jovial tone, "Especially big and rotund ones!"

"Oh, for the love of holy narks", huffed Romana, but she couldn't dampen the Professor joyous babble too much at all.

"I remember when I was a young boy the nursemaid took me and my brother to see bears and tigers in a sort of small zoo built wholly in an island. Oh joy, that dazzled us little boys, and elders too! I would've much liked to take a Siberian bear home as a pet, but I doubt my poor mother had heard that sort of nonsense, if the nanny didn't."

The beast-Jago slept and growled so loud that the whole driving cab swayed back and forth in his hoarse out-breathing rhythm. Romana's patience had worn thin, and was as fragile as a feather, as she thought it was somewhat unfair for the Doctor to leave her responsible for the gentlemen's doings, all the while he himself was solving more intriguing puzzles. To be fair though, the Professor and Mr. Jago were exceptionally excellent individuals, but not too bright if you'd make a direct comparison to Romana. And compared to _Romana_ even the Doctor was kind of a cloudy cotton ball in the headspace.

Sometimes Romana wished she didn't always had to be the one, who had to smack an adult man of medicine right on the fingers, so that he wouldn't end up petting Mr. Jago till he was poisoned. Easier to be said than done. And if the history was to repeat itself, Professor Litefoot would soon find time to regret his own curiosity in the worst way. Mr. Jago clacked his jaws and in a sleepy confused haze he little bit bit the Professor by the hand with his yellowed canine teeth.

" _Goodness gracious and the heavenly bodies!_ " Litefoot exclaimed in a shock, and even though Jago didn't bite hard, the Professor couldn't yank his hand off. The awkward silence would have turned the respective mood nippy indeed, if Jago hadn't continually grumbled like a happy animal.

"As the saying goes, one reaps what they sow", stated Romana dryly, but couldn't keep a smile from her face, as the Professor was so delightfully frightened, all the while the beast-Jago whisked cuddly his fat leg. If there were truly simple creatures in the world , they're definitely men and animals! And Romana had first-hand experience, among other things, from one particular Doctor and his robot dog. So it's likely this particular truth was universally expendable.

Litefoot grasped Jago tightly from the woolly sideburns and pulled.

"Let go off me, you snoring, barbarous _scoundrel!_ " he scolded Jago briskly, and just as so, Jago eased his teeth – and even licked the sores with his rosy red tongue! Romana peeked through the cab's round windows, but the darkened class was like a mirror, and it only showed some rough gentlemen petting.

"Please don't wake him up, Professor, unless you wish Mr. Jago to bite your head off", Romana resumed with her warnings, even though it went exactly as unheard as a hurricane warning in the eye of the storm. Suddenly Mr. Jago's beastliness begun to rapidly fade away. By Jove, in no time there was a Human shaped Impresario again, slumbering and sniffling in the Professor's lap (though he was still licking said Professor's sore hand in his sleep.)

"My dear Miss, could I modestly request us to take a direct route to Baker Street?" said Professor Litefoot somewhat embarrassed, as surely Ms. Romana could see it with her own two eyes, that Mr. Jago wasn't fit for being a house pet any more than an old Siberian bear was.

 **FIN**


End file.
